Bottling from keg for long-term storage

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ThorGodOfThunder

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I am going to press cider wednesday, and I plan on making a batch of sparkling hard cider with some of it. I want to naturally carbonate in a keg, with priming sugar, then I want to transfer to bottles for long-term storage, thus freeing up my keg for something else.

I've read about counter-pressure fillers and the BeerGun (which looks easy enough to build; I'm not spending that much on one!), etc...

What would be the best way to make sure this stuff stays fresh for a year or so?
 
IMO - there isn't really any way to do this really well without one of those beer guns...
I use a hose with plastic picnic tap.. I heat the end of a 1 foot piece of hose and manage to stretch it over the tip of the picnic tap, then I lower the pressure to almost nothing in the keg, 1 or 2 psi.. and I slowly fill the bottles, it works... but I've never kept any of these bottles for over a month... so not sure how they'd do sitting for a year...
 
Thor, if you're going to carbonate with priming sugar why not just bottle it from the start? Or do you not have a bottling bucket and capper. There are lots of posts in this forum pertaining to this. I don't know about 1 year but I know there are lots of members who've bottled from the keg and kept it for quite some time.

Edit: But to answer your question here's a pic of what I use. Like I said I don't know about a year but whatever you can do to keep oxygen out the better off you'll be.

thumb2_keg_bottling_wand_setup-46216.jpg
 
I want to carb in the keg because I can leave all of the sediment in there (i'm not opposed to force carbing, but I'm cheap and sugar costs less than CO2 :D ). I gift a lot of my product, and it is nice to be able to drink right from the bottle rather than pouring in a glass in order to avoid disturbing the yeast. I hate to give people a 6-pack with instructions on how to drink it without farting yourself to death.


I have a schematic for a counter-pressure filler with 3 tubes going through the cork. One for CO2 in for purging, one for beer in, and one for bleeding out (so i can control it with a small bleeder valve instead of deforming the cork. I'd have to use 1/8 line for the CO2 line and an inflator needle through the cork to take up even less space for the bleed line.
 
ThorGodOfThunder said:
I want to carb in the keg because I can leave all of the sediment in there (i'm not opposed to force carbing, but I'm cheap and sugar costs less than CO2 :D ). I gift a lot of my product, and it is nice to be able to drink right from the bottle rather than pouring in a glass in order to avoid disturbing the yeast. I hate to give people a 6-pack with instructions on how to drink it without farting yourself to death.

I have a schematic for a counter-pressure filler with 3 tubes going through the cork. One for CO2 in for purging, one for beer in, and one for bleeding out (so i can control it with a small bleeder valve instead of deforming the cork. I'd have to use 1/8 line for the CO2 line and an inflator needle through the cork to take up even less space for the bleed line.
Click to expand...

Sounds like your counter pressure idea will work fine, better than what I use. I use one that looks like the pic above. But I contest your sugar vs CO2 cost claim. You are already going to use CO2 to seal the keg, push all the finished product out of the keg, and purge all of the bottles before filling. The only CO2 you'll be saving is the gas to actually absorb into solution. If you're that cheap, do you turn your car off at stop lights? Plus, carbing with gas, you won't have any sediment in the keg to deal with either.
 
I've tapped some straight from my keg to a flip-top bottle and it worked no problems. Then I hooked up my keg to have it on tap. but then again I have a commercial size keggerator and can fit 6 corni kegs with room to spare.
 
What if, instead of debating my carbonation method, we actually just try to answer my question.

Geiger:
How long did you store them?

All I'm worried about is long term storage of force-carbonated stuff. I can handle everything else on my own so far, and I appreciate the concern, but I really just need an answer from someone who has done exactly what I'm trying to do.
 
I bottle virtually all of my beers precarbonated. I have both a beergun and a counterpressure filler, and I use them both depending on my mood. It works well for my purposes. I start getting a bit of oxidation around six months out typically. The only way I have found to avoid that is to bottle condition.
 
ThorGodOfThunder said:
What if, instead of debating my carbonation method, we actually just try to answer my question.

Geiger:
How long did you store them?

All I'm worried about is long term storage of force-carbonated stuff. I can handle everything else on my own so far, and I appreciate the concern, but I really just need an answer from someone who has done exactly what I'm trying to do.
Click to expand...

I opened my last beer that I made just after Xmas 2011. So that's about 9 months and it was carbed just right. The flip bottles have a great seal.
 
At my LHBS I was told that cider tends to foam up more than beer when using a counter pressure bottle filler. Is that true? Are there ways to avoid or minimize that? Would a beergun be better at reducing foam?

Does cider last longer in bottles than in a keg?
 
ThorGodOfThunder said:
All I'm worried about is long term storage of force-carbonated stuff. I can handle everything else on my own so far, and I appreciate the concern, but I really just need an answer from someone who has done exactly what I'm trying to do.
Click to expand...

I have bottled from kegs using the device described in this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-need-no-stinking-beer-gun-24678/, which is simply a racking cane and a stopper with a hole in it. It worked well, and I've cracked open bottles 7 to 8 months later and the carbonation was still wonderful, and I haven't experienced any oxidation that I could detect. I've still got a bunch of Bourbon-Barrel Porter that I'll be consuming over the winter months, so I'll have some examples of even longer storage.
 
Awesome, keep me updated if you don't mind.

I plan on over-engineering the filling device, so I can be cheap and get good results. My current design has a co2 purge tube going to the bottom of the bottle, along with a bottling wand. Then I'll have a bleeder valve attached to a small needle in the top of the cork to bleed out co2 as it fills. It should keep the process fairly well sealed up.
 

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